Vombatus-
The Brits are less reticent to point out the ill health of our traditional institutions.
Somehow, though, The Guardian isn't on life support.
I saw a story yesterday that print media is thriving in rural India.

Whenever I see old pictures of thriving newsrooms or watch an old movie like All the President's Men or even Superman (they showed the inside of the Daily Planet often) I always lament that I entered the business in 2007. My second job was a 100,000 circulation and it still kind of resembled the thriving days but even then there were pockets of empty desks, including one adjacent to my desk that repeatedly warned me to not get to comfortable.

As tough as it's been to see the decline, I'm grateful to have witnessed a thriving newsroom in the early 90s located in the heart of a downtown American city, where you could feel the press runs begin and take home the work you did at the end of a night shift. I feel bad for those that won't have those memories.

As tough as it's been to see the decline, I'm grateful to have witnessed a thriving newsroom in the early 90s located in the heart of a downtown American city, where you could feel the press runs begin and take home the work you did at the end of a night shift. I feel bad for those that won't have those memories.

Click to expand...

Great post. The first few years of my career in the early '80s were spent in a newsroom that had a clattering AP teletype machine, a constant cigarette stench that lingered even when the room was vacant, and massive stacks of paper on almost every desk. I don't really miss the noise and definitely don't miss all that smoke, but I do wish my younger colleagues could have experienced the exciting atmosphere. It's impossible to get that feeling in a room that looks like an insurance office, with dozens of empty desks and an off-site printing facility.

“Technology can allow us to do things with greater efficiency and productivity, labour costs are reduced, but what I wanted to show is that there is a human element lost in that. We are in the middle of this huge transition, and the newspaper industry itself is very much at the front of this process that will happen in every other industry. The beneficiaries of this are a privileged and extremely wealthy few, but a broad spectrum of highly skilled workers are going to be displaced and out of luck for a very long time.”